‘Yes . . . and there’s an assassination plot. I can’t prove it yet, but tell Charlie he’s got to believe me – and then find a way to convince everyone else there, too.’

  Even as Saffron said the words, she knew what an impossible task she was giving Charlie Playfair. ‘And he’s got to tell the guards on the gate to let me in. I’m going up to the embassy now. I just hope to God I won’t be too late.’

  ‘Is Charlie going to be all right?’ Mavis asked, looking at Saffron with terrified eyes.

  ‘I don’t know . . . I really don’t. Oh . . . and one more thing . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Tell Charlie that if Millicent James is at the embassy, and I’ll bet my bottom dollar she is, then grab her, lock her up, and for God’s sake don’t let her out of the building.’

  ‘Millicent . . .’ Mavis never finished the sentence. Saffron had spotted a taxi and was running into the road, arm aloft, to flag it down.

  • • •

  L

  ewandowski was sitting at the wheel of his truck, parked in one of the quiet residential streets of Georgetown, half a dozen blocks north of M Street, cursing his misfortune. Taking out the Courtney woman was supposed to be the easy part: lure her away from the embassy, force her into the alleyway, and problem solved. Two of his men would dispose of her; the rest would stand ready to extract Foxglove when her job was done. But then the American had arrived, charging into the alley. He was plainly a hopeless amateur, but he had been the random element that disrupted Lewandowski’s careful calculations.

  Courtney had escaped. And now she would know that her suspicions had been well placed. But would she realise the magnitude of what was about to happen? Lewandowski found that hard to believe, yet he had to proceed on the assumption that now she knew everything.

  And then Lewandowski caught a lucky break: a message coming over the radio in his truck. He had kept three men in reserve: Novak and two others. They’d been sitting in a parked car about a block away from the diner. Now they came into play.

  ‘She’s getting into a taxi on 31st Street, heading north,’ Novak said. ‘What do you want us to do?’

  ‘Follow her.’

  ‘Got it!’

  As his men got moving, Lewandowski kept talking. ‘She’ll be making for the embassy. Wait till you’re north of Rock Creek. The road is clearer there, less traffic. That’s where you stop her.’

  ‘By any means necessary?’

  ‘Whatever it takes. She must not get to the embassy.’

  ‘You got it, boss.’

  Lewandowski checked the time and smiled. Even if she does reach the embassy, she’s going to be too late.

  • • •

  M

  illicent James almost felt sorry for Agent Bob. He was still on duty, standing like a loyal dog outside the morning room, while his invalid master dined inside.

  What a stroke of luck that ludicrous argument about who should sit where had been! Bob had been right – the dining room was completely exposed. That would have made it harder for Millicent to hide the bomb Shadow had given her. But then the argument had happened, and she had had that sudden moment of inspiration and suggested an alternative that made it all so much easier.

  Millicent had almost been caught out when Bob had suddenly decided to check on what she was doing. Ten seconds earlier, and he would have seen her pressing the lump of PENT – an explosive which, Lewandowski had assured her, was two-thirds more destructive than TNT – against the underside of the Georgian mahogany dining table, right by the single leg that supported it. There was a magnet stuck into the top of the explosive. On the top of the table, underneath the silver bowl containing the centrepiece that Millicent had been fussing over, was the steel disc that she had placed there, to which the magnet was attracted.

  Now she was standing on the terrace, where it had been decided, since this was a pleasant spring evening, Lady Halifax would enjoy a light supper with the Duchess of Windsor.

  The weather might have been balmy, but the atmosphere at the table was anything but. Neither woman had eaten more than a morsel of her food. Their conversation, meanwhile, had been icy, stilted, painfully commonplace, the politeness forced, the mutual dislike palpable.

  To an upper-class Englishwoman like Dorothy Wood, Lady Halifax, the duchess would always be Wallis Simpson, the calculating, disreputable American divorcee who had seduced the Prince of Wales and then, once he became King Edward VIII, lured him into a marriage so unsuitable that it forced his abdication from the throne. And she had, as every member of London high society knew – or, at least, believed – been making love to the German ambassador, Ribbentrop, even as she played at being a royal consort. To the duchess, on the other hand, a woman like Lady Halifax was the living embodiment of everything she hated about the British upper class and their ironclad snobbery.

  Millicent despised them both equally. It was as well that she had placed herself in the shadows, ostensibly so that her presence would not be intrusive, but more importantly, so that they could not see the smile on her face as she contemplated what was about to happen, by her calculation, in a little more than five minutes.

  Suddenly the chilly peace of the terrace was disturbed by the sound of raised voices coming from inside the building. ‘Millicent, go and see who’s making that terrible racket,’ Lady Halifax commanded.

  ‘Yes, My Lady,’ Millicent said. She walked through the double doors into the main corridor. The source of the noise was immediately apparent. Charlie Playfair was standing by the entrance to the morning room, having a furious argument with Agent Bob. Millicent made her way as stealthily as she could along the corridor. She was used to going unnoticed by her social superiors.

  ‘I’m telling you, we have to get them all out of there!’ Playfair insisted.

  ‘And I’m telling you, they ain’t budging,’ Bob retorted.

  ‘But they’re not safe!’

  ‘The hell they ain’t!’

  The door of the morning room opened and Lord Halifax poked his head out. ‘What in hell’s name is going on here!’

  ‘This man wants to remove you and your guests from the morning room, Your Excellency,’ Bob said.

  ‘Is this true, Playfair?’ Halifax asked.

  ‘Yes, Your Excellency. I have reason to believe you’re in great danger.’

  ‘And what reason would that be?’

  ‘I’ve received a message from Miss Courtney—’

  ‘You mean, that little girl who works for Stephenson?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Halifax snorted. ‘Don’t be so absurd. Go back to your office, Playfair. And we shall have words in the morning.’

  Millicent considered her options. She should leave the embassy right now and make her escape. But her orders were to make sure that the device had exploded and confirm the casualties before she contacted Shadow. But Millicent had her own reasons for staying at the embassy. She wanted to hear the bomb go off, to see the horror on everyone’s faces, to bask in the knowledge that she – Lady Halifax’s despised, disregarded dogsbody – had fooled them all.

  I’m going to kill you, Mr Churchill – yes, me, boring little Millicent, who all the snobby diplomats look down on and laugh at – and there’s nothing that you, or Mr Roosevelt or any of his Secret Service agents can do to stop me.

  But as much as Millicent wanted to be in the vicinity of the bomb when it exploded, she had no intention of being one of its victims. So instead of going back to the terrace, which was adjacent to the morning room and would certainly catch some of the blast, she went up the private circular staircase that led to the residence’s bedrooms. She would find an empty room, as far from the morning room as possible, wait for the blast, and then re-emerge to survey the results.

  She checked the time again. It was 19.46 by her watch. The bomb was fitted with a ninety-minute fuse. She had activated it at a little before 18.25. Less than ten minutes to go.

  • • •

  W

  hile Lewandowski had been talking to his men, and Millicent was waiting on her mistress, Saffron had been sitting in a taxi, urging the driver to throw caution to the wind and put his foot down. Why now, of all times, did she have a cabbie who was calm, patient and polite? He seemed willing to let other drivers cut in ahead of him, never raced to get through the lights before they turned red, was always slow to accelerate when they turned green.

  Saffron was close to despair. Forget an assassination – Churchill and the others would have died of old age by the time the taxi got there. ‘For God’s sake, drive faster!’ she screamed.

  The driver was having none of it. ‘Don’t you speak to me like that, lady, or I’ll kick you out of my cab.’

  ‘Right then,’ Saffron replied. She reached into her handbag, extracted the .44 Magnum revolver and held it to the back of the driver’s head. ‘Drive as fast as this useless jalopy will go, or I’ll blow your brains out all over the windscreen, dump your body on the street and drive the bloody thing myself.’

  ‘Okay! Okay! Just put the gun down!’

  Now the taxi started moving. ‘Good. Don’t slow down. Not for anything.’

  Saffron slumped back into the passenger seat, with the Magnum in her right hand, tapping the barrel against the palm of her left while she thought her way through the idea that Millicent James was a spy. It seemed absurd, but what better cover could there be than that of an apparently insignificant woman, who held a job whose title – personal assistant – made it respectable for a middle-class woman, yet which was, in essence, no different from being a servant?

  Saffron remembered standing outside the ambassador’s office and Millicent saying, ‘I’m in and out all the time.’ Of course she was, and since everyone knew that no one would be surprised to see her enter that private sanctum – even if Lord Halifax himself were not present. Millicent only had to say that her ladyship had asked her to fetch something and no one would think anything of it . . . because no one thinks anything of her.

  But why had Millicent done it? Why had she even considered betraying her country to begin with? Intellectuals like Charlie and Mavis Playfair might be driven by ideology, but Millicent was nothing like them. She was motivated by her emotions more than her intellect. So, although the assassination would have massive political consequences, Saffron was willing to bet that they would be of no consequence to Millicent. She was doing this for reasons that were deeply personal.

  Somehow Millicent had found the enemy agents who could help her. Had she sought them out, or had they approached her? To an intelligence agency, the private secretaries of powerful men and women were always desirable assets. And a honeytrap wasn’t always just a beautiful young woman seducing gullible men. A man could easily win over a lonely woman by making her feel desired, loved, special. Millicent must have dreaded the thought of living the rest of her life alone. Unloved, emotionally barren, happiness a fading prospect, she would have presented an easy target for a man who was trained to exploit her vulnerabilities.

  But who had that man been working for? Donovan had been insistent that the Nazis did not have a significant secret intelligence presence in the United States.

  And then it finally hit Saffron.

  Russians.

  The last word Clayton Stackpole had uttered before he died. He’d said that the next war would be with Russia. And it looked as if it had already begun.

  Saffron put her head in her hands and moaned as she thought of Clay, his face creasing in agony, his life force ebbing away, all the joy and passion she had known with him turning into mournful silence.

  The taxi driver leaned over. ‘You all right, lady?’

  ‘Fine,’ Saffron said, fighting to contain her grief.

  Dusk was falling over the city as they left the built-up heart of Washington and crossed into the semi-rural, suburban stretch of Massachusetts Avenue on which the British embassy stood. The road was made even darker by the tall trees on either side, and most of the cars they passed had their lights switched on.

  This was the way that Millicent had driven Saffron, the day she’d arrived in Washington. And then it struck her: something that Millicent had said when they were sitting side by side in her car. Something Saffron had completely misinterpreted. And then, finally, she understood it all, and in the same instant, realised that understanding didn’t make a bit of difference.

  They’re all going to die!

  The cabbie was driving at full pelt now, quickly overtaking cars whose drivers were taking it easy, relaxing behind the wheel as they made their way home. But someone else was also driving fast, and quickly catching up with them.

  Saffron turned to look out of the rear window and her eyes were instantly dazzled by a pair of oncoming headlights.

  ‘Step on it!’ she shouted to the driver.

  He tensed his shoulders but it was too late. Suddenly his body was jolted forward onto the steering wheel as the car rammed into the back of the cab.

  That was enough to really make the cabbie put his foot down. He sped up the avenue, jinking past a slow delivery van. The car behind followed.

  The avenue was two lanes wide in both directions. The taxi was in the right-hand lane, doing more than fifty miles an hour. The pursuing car came up the inside lane, going even faster. As it pulled almost level with the taxi, Saffron could make out flared front wheel arches flowing down past the long snout of the bonnet towards the passenger compartment. It looked like something from a gangster film, with running boards for Hollywood hoodlums to stand on, firing their Tommy guns.

  But this was no movie.

  And the men in the car weren’t actors.

  The Russian driver nosed his car in towards their yellow cab to force them off the road. Saffron saw a passenger window at the back of the car roll down and a gun barrel emerge. She ducked down just as it was fired, the bullet smashing the rear window of the cab.

  ‘Shit, lady, what in Christ is going on?’ the cabbie shouted.

  Saffron lifted her gun to her shoulder. She had already fired two bullets, so there were four rounds left.

  The taxi was rocketing along at almost seventy, its engine howling. A small gap opened up between the two cars as the cabbie pushed the taxi’s engine to the limit. Very soon, that gap would close. Saffron had to act now.

  Two more shots from the car behind smashed into the taxi’s bodywork. Saffron steeled herself, took a deep breath, then turned, kneeling on the back seat to fire three quick shots through the shattered rear window, into the driver’s side of the oncoming car’s windscreen.

  For a second or two, nothing happened. A sickening feeling gripped Saffron’s stomach. She had used up all but one of the Magnum’s rounds. She still had her little Beretta, but at this distance its bullets would have little impact.

  Then suddenly, the long bonnet slewed violently and the lights swung past as the car cut across the road behind the cab. It hurtled into a telegraph pole that crashed down like a sawn tree, crushing the passenger compartment. Saffron saw a lick of flame around the bonnet. Any second now the car would be burning, and if the impact hadn’t killed the men inside, the fire certainly would.

  The taxi driver slowed, then braked sharply and pulled to the side of the road. He slumped over the wheel. ‘I can’t go no further,’ he said. He was trembling all over.

  Saffron saw the embassy up ahead. She got out her purse, extracted a handful of twenty-dollar bills and handed them over. ‘That should cover the damage. With a tip for being a careful driver,’ she added.

  She darted across the road and ran towards the main gates of the embassy, her bag flapping against her body. When she reached the guard box, a man stepped out onto the pavement in front of her. It was Charlie Playfair.

  ‘It’s no good,’ he said. ‘They won’t believe me.’

  ‘Take this,’ Saffron said, throwing her bag towards him. She didn’t want it slowing her down. She sprinted towards the entrance to the residence with Playfair trailing behind her. ‘They’re in the morning room!’ he shouted and stopped, bent over, his hands on his knees, the bag dangling down between them.

  It was 19.51.

  Saffron retraced the steps she had taken on her first visit to the residence, running through the arch beneath the ambassador’s study, up the steps to the entrance, through the lobby and up the stairs. It was only when she turned right, along the landing leading to the main corridor, that she realised she didn’t know where the morning room was. She saw the ramrod-straight figure of a man in a plain black suit standing outside a door up ahead to the left. He must be a guard. And inside that door would be the people he was guarding.

  Saffron slowed to a brisk walk, gathering her breath as she approached the man. ‘Is this the morning room?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he answered, in an American accent, ‘but you’d better move right—’

  Before the guard could finish his sentence, Saffron looked to her left, pointed down the corridor and let out a high-pitched squeal of alarm. As the guard turned to see what had provoked her reaction, she pushed him with all her strength and sent him staggering away from the door.

  Saffron opened it and walked in. She considered screaming ‘Get out!’ but decided that her best option was to appear as calm and competent as possible. Four pairs of male eyes turned towards her, while she scanned the room. Where would I put the bomb? The answer was obvious: In the bullseye.

  ‘Why, Miss Courtney, what an unexpected pleasure,’ said Churchill. ‘Mr President, gentlemen, may I—’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Saffron, dropping to her knees between the prime minister’s chair and the duke’s. ‘Do excuse me.’

  ‘I say. . .’ drawled the duke, with an amused expression on his face.

  She crawled under the table, all too aware of the absurd impression she was creating. And maybe the joke was on her. There was no bomb to be seen.

  It was 19.53.

  ‘Where is she?’ growled an American voice from the door – the guard.

  Lord Halifax shouted, ‘Get out of there, woman!’

  Saffron did not respond. She knew she was right. She had to be right.